Wien, 02.05.2025 An outburst of midsummer

For the first of May holiday we traveled to Vienna with Leo and Thorb. As it is impossible to plan for the weather circumstances, we were pleasantly surprised with tons of sunshine and the bluest sky ever. We met with two friends we made in Shanghai, Hedda who is originally Austrian and Xindao from Japan, who moved here with her Chinese husband and their daughter Noa.

Wien, 03.05.2025 Pony carousel and vegan ice cream

As always, the food is great everywhere we go. We spent the evening at a "Heurigen", a wine growing estate which also offers food. And we started today with the best breakfast at a former "Ponykarussell". The vegan ice cream was so good, we had to visit it twice. And on top of that, we found a precious postcard-only-shop, a tailor who designs and produces fancy coats, a well-sorted shop named "Wundertuete" (lucky bag) and a grocer with very special jellies and jams. Vienna in my mind is now THE place to be!

Frankfurt, 09.05.2025 Doerrs grandchildren

As I wrote already in April of 2017, the family of my fathers mother used to get together for every important birthday or wedding anniversary of any of my grandmothers siblings. We used to be quite a bunch of people, since my grandmother had one sister, one twin sister and two younger brothers (only one of them died young). I remember we booked whole hotels for such occasions, and I just enjoyed being one of many kids - having only one 'real' cousin, who was anyway far too old for me, I just loved meeting and playing with children my age. Our last big family meeting had been in 2017 in Munich, and I had promised my aunts and uncles not to wait ten years to announce a follow-up. My uncle Christoph, the Jesuit priest, had meanwhile moved to Frankfurt, so that`s where we met. We started the first evening with a reading. My great-grandmother Hedwig and her husband Otto had written letters to each other during world-war I. My aunt Dagmar and my cousin Georg read those letters and by listening we were able to immerse ourselves in a very personal way in a time that was both long gone and yet something we could all connect with. My parents' generation, my aunts and uncles had all known their grandmother. It was harrowing to see what the horrors of war meant for these two in concrete terms: While he lay in the trench, she didn't know where she would get enough food or how she would keep four small children quiet all on her own. (Without a man in the house, she was terrorized by her neighbors.) Somehow, our current worries were put into perspective. We were deeply touched, and glad that none of us ever had to endure such poverty and threat.

The mother of my grandmother, Hedwig Stevens, is the fourth from the left in the last row. Her mother is the second in the last row (in a black dress). In front of her, also in a black dress, is her grandmother. So, the grandmother of my great-grandmother!

From left to right, more or less, and in sibling groups: Manfred and Uta.

Stefanie, Lelio, Basti, Kathi, Heidi, Nicolas, Christoph, Johannes, Martin, Lars-Peter, Max, Patricia, Charlotte, Susanne, Silke, Felix, Justus, Lea, Marga, Florian, Simon, Jakob, Peter, Frank, Birgit, Sophie, Magnus.

Benedikt, Lennart, Ralph, Mia, Moritz, Tobi, Riki, Uta, Stephan.

Dagmar, Katharina, Georg, Astrid, Eberhard, Julian, Susanne, Johannes, Cordula, Niklas, Silke, Georg, Christoph, Antonia, Klaus.

Our meeting put many things for me into perspective, especially the ever-present thought that everything has become so expensive. No one would want to trade places with the very particular and terrible poverty of war. We searched for and found common ground, as well as differences; we connected with one another, we looked back and we looked to the future. It is a great gift that we have been given with this family tradition of large gatherings, and I am proud and happy that we have all filled it with so much life once again.

Nuthe-Nieplitz, 18.05.2025 The view

Heusenstamm, 15.06.2025 Confirmation

Hamburg, 15.06.2025 The next stop

Schoeneiche, 21.06.2025 The next run

Berlin, 29.06.2025 Harvesting

Aachen, 04.07.2025 85

Happy birthday, Mama!

Berlin, 08.07.2025 Jacotene

Lucky me. I won two tickets for a small concert introducing Jacotene, a young Australian singer. Melanie joined me and we had such a perfect evening with a beautiful sunset on a water terrace overlooking the river Spree.

Berlin, 10.07.2025 Fluid X

Tobis new office in Moabit. We celebrated the opening with a lot of pizza!

Berlin, 15.07.2025 Flea market 2.0

Berlin, 19.07.2025 Summer

Leipzig, 25.07.2025 Christmas voucher

Uta and I traveled to Leipzig for the weekend and it was great fun. The weather was perfect, the historic city center beautiful, the shops unique and some neighbourhoods refreshingly different.

Luedersdorf, 25.07.2025 Summer still

Kassel, 01.08.2025 The move

Triepkendorf, 07.08.2025 Tenzo

We had heard of a cosy place two hours north of Berlin within the Feldberger Seenlandschaft. So we spent our three-day-summer-holiday here and pretty relaxing it was!

Carwitz, 08.08.2025 Hans Fallada

Stargard, 10.08.2025 Knight festival

Mumbai, 19.08.2025 Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Aachen, 23.08.2025 Catchup

My cousin Sarah also married someone called Tobi, but due to everyday life, we sadly never met. So I was happy my godfather Bernd called my parents that they were just visiting Sarah in Moenchengladbach, a small city not far from my hometown. We took the opportunity to visit them there and spent a nice summer afternoon with them.

Horstfelde, 24.08.2025 Meanwhile around Berlin

Berlin, 27.08.2025 A visit from Aachen

It's been some time since my parents visited Berlin. We spent a couple of cosy summer days together and even managed to catch up with my cousin Felix, his wife Marie and their kids.